I'm Alice Naubery. You're listening to NPR's Life Kit.

I've got a question for you. Have you made your plan to vote yet?

If you live in the United States, you probably already know that November 3rd is election day.

If you didn't, write that down right now. Tuesday, November 3rd.

Obviously, this election is going to be a lot different than in years past.

Lots of Americans are voting early, so this year you can think of November 3rd as your deadline.

I spoke with Mirna Payrez about this year's election. She's the director of the Voting Rights

and Elections program at the Brennan Center for Justice.

This is a really important election. Elections are the way that we in this country resolve

our political differences peacefully. And right now, our country is in the middle of a

reckoning for things that we have done and things that we have left undone.

And if we're going to get ourselves out of it, we need to leverage the talents and experience

and expertise of all of us. And that includes you. So, Mirna and I talked about what we can all do

to make election day go smoothly. So, you can cast your ballot, stay safe, and keep everyone around

you healthy. My first question to her is it even possible to stay safe at the polls in the middle

of a pandemic? Absolutely. I think voters should obviously take precautions and voters who have

high-risk profiles should consider voting by mail if it's possible. But we have done a thorough

analysis along with the infectious diseases society of America. And we've concluded that if folks

take some common sense precautions, we should be just fine. So, I'm imagining as with so many other

things at this time, it's not so much the activity, it's how we choose to do the activity.

What other practical things can people be thinking about? And maybe it's just the same stuff we

keep hearing. Stay masked, stay distance, keep washing your hands. Well, it's a little bit more

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